


In Da Club

by yeats



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Flirting, Grinding, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Team Bonding, VERY dirty dancing, semi-resolved sexual tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 07:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10826805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeats/pseuds/yeats
Summary: "Do you want to go somewhere?" Ricky wants to say. The words bounce and collide on his tongue like champagne bubbles."Do you want to dance?" he says instead.





	In Da Club

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inabathrobe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inabathrobe/gifts).



“…out tonight."

"What?" The juddering beat booming from the speakers drowns everything else out. Ricky turns his gaze away from the dance floor.

Cris is sitting beside him, an untouched champagne flute dangling in his loose grasp. Staccato flashes of light limn his profile in yellow, red, pink neon. He says a bit louder, "I said, you didn't have to come out tonight. Everyone would have understood.”

Ricky casts a glance around them at the VIP section, where the rest of their team is spread out in the leather booths, passing bottles of champagne between them in various stages of obliteration. Forty minutes ago, Sergio disappeared into the writhing scrum of bodies on the dance floor, flanked by three impossibly beautiful dance partners of indeterminate gender. Now, he's back, shirt half-unbuttoned and hair loose over the shoulders, one hand braced on Iker’s thigh for stability as he leans over to pluck a bottle out of Iker's grasp. He doesn't bother moving his hand away as he takes it to his lips and swallows deeply. Ricky wonders if he ought to intervene, but decides there are enough members of La Roja there who have more experience with this sort of behavior than him. 

“Would they have, though?” he says, turning back to Cris.

"Maybe not, but they also wouldn't have remembered. And they know you don't drink."

"Neither do you, I thought."

Cris shrugs. “It’s a special occasion. Plus, I knew Marcelo and Pepe were never going to let me be until I at least had one." He spins the stem between his first and second fingers, and the glass catches the light like a miniature disco ball. "Mostly I've just been holding it. I don't really like the taste." 

"You do look good holding it," Ricky says.

"I always look good, haven't you learned by now?" Cris jokes, giving his best photo shoot pout. He's been like this all night, giddy and charming and never more than an arm's length away from Ricky's side. It's dangerous, but Ricky is selfish enough that he doesn't want him anywhere else.

"I have noticed that, yes." 

Cris laughs – Ricky can't hear it over the music, but he sees the way Cris’s eyes crinkle and his teeth flash. He leans in to whisper, though it's so loud he still has to raise his voice. "I'm glad you came, though." His breath is hot and deliberate against Ricky's skin.

"Me, too." Ricky swallows, and feels Cris's gaze on his throat. They've been skirting around something for so long now, taking shallow steps closer to the edge. The slightest breeze could tip them over the precipice.

As if on cue, Sergio bellows, “Toast! Let's have a toast, motherfuckers!”

“This is like your sixth toast," Cris calls out, but it's a losing battle – the rest of the team takes up the cry, stomping their feet in unison and egging him on.

“Somebody get Ricky a glass of champagne — don't think we don't see you two over there, whispering to each other like a couple of teenage girls with crushes."

Mesut chokes on his drink; Sami pounds his back until he snorts up bubbles.

“ _Filho da puta,_ ” Cris sighs. “ _Come on, you know they won't stop if we don’t._ “

“ _That's right we won’t!_ ” Marcelo yells, waving his bottle and nearly clocking Higuain in the process.

"What are they saying?" Sergio whirls around, accusing. "Iker, what are they saying?"

"How the fuck should I know?" Iker shoves him, but his reflexes are slower, so it's more like a full-body grope. Or maybe that's intentional. 

Ricky wraps his hand around Cris's champagne flute, interlacing their fingers against the sweating glass. "It's all right, we're sharing."

Sergio acknowledges them with a regal nod, all of the presence and stature of a sloppy minor royal. Beside him, Iker is an Impressionist painting of sobriety: perfectly composed at a distance, but a splotchy mess at close range. Ricky isn't sure which one of them is holding the other up.

"Good, okay, perfect," Sergio says, standing. "I just want to say, I just want to tell you assholes that this, tonight, this is the night! This is the night, and I'm here with all of you, all of you magnificent bastards, because we fucking won! We’re the champions, puta madre! And I love every single one of you, you beautiful sons of bitches, I love you."

“Hey, dude, keep it in your pants!" Callejon heckles. Ricky feels the minute vibrations of Cris's suppressed laughter.

“Keep it in Iker’s pants, at least," Arbeloa says. Sergio lunges at him, but again the swaying, solid mass of Iker’s body stops him.

“Shut the fuck up and let me finish, dude!” Sergio holds his bottle aloft. “Shit. Now you made forget what I was going to say…Hala Madrid, y nada mas!”

“Hala Madrid, y nada mas!” 

Cris raises the glass to his mouth, taking Ricky's hand with it. He takes a shallow sip, throat working. Ricky's knuckles graze his bottom lip, and a drop of champagne slides down the back of Ricky's hand, leaving a cool trail along his flushed skin.

"Can I?" Ricky asks. Around them, he's vaguely aware of Pipita shouting, the harsh braying of Sergio's laughter. It couldn't be less important.

"Of course." Cris's eyes are dark and wide. 

Ricky turns the glass, positions it so his lips cover the exact imprint Cris's lips had left. The bubbles break over his tongue, sharp and frenetic like the music or the way Cris is watching him. 

He swallows once, then twice. Ricky's never had a taste for alcohol, but Cris wets his lips and he suddenly wonders what he'd be like if he did. Would he have the courage to drag his lips over the side of Cris's jaw, like everyone is studiously pretending that Sergio just didn't do to Iker? (Again, good luck to the Spaniards on that.) 

He guides Cris to set the glass back onto the table, but keeps their hands clasped together. Bends and straightens his fingers, revelling in the way his nails catch against the inside of Cris's knuckles.

"Ricky," Cris says, a warning and a plea at once. Their sides are pressed together, shoulder-to-knee. If Ricky slouched a bit, or sat up taller, he could rub his knee along Cris's thigh. 

"Do you want to go somewhere?" Ricky wants to say. The words bounce and collide on his tongue like champagne bubbles.

"Do you want to dance?" is what he says instead.

Cris blinks. "I thought you didn't dance."

"I don't," Ricky says. "But you do." He's seen it before, at the impromptu dressing room dance parties Sergio and Marcelo sometimes instigate to celebrate major victories or the rare occasions they've all been out like this in the name of 'team bonding.' Cris doesn't have the same unerring instinctive rhythm as the others do, but when he dances, he throws himself into it, the sheer physicality of his body its own sensual power. He dances like he probably makes love, Ricky thinks, and pretends it's the first time he's ever wondered about it.

"Come on," he says, pulling Cris upright. "Let's go." He heads for the dance floor, Cris stumbling after him. He pauses at the railing that segregates their little area from the rest of the club, and Cris stops just behind him, half a step too close. He puts a hand on Ricky's side, as if to steady himself. It's a plausible excuse.

"What are you doing?" Cris says over his shoulder. 

Ricky looks out over the dance floor, surveying the crowd. Off to one side, he sees a girl with long dark hair and even longer legs. He can't tell much else from this distance, but he doesn't need to. He knows what Cris likes.

"Over there. By the speakers. Red dress." He points with their clasped hands. The gesture brings the hot, solid plane of Cris's front flush against Ricky's back. 

"What about her?" 

"I want to see you dance with her," Ricky says.

Cris shivers. "Christ, Ricky." His lips brush Ricky's ear and his other hand cases Ricky's side. It's a reckless, dangerous, stupid idea. But not as reckless and dangerous and stupid what they're both imagining right now, what they've been drifting towards for months. 

Ricky rocks against Cris for one viciously sweet moment, then pulls away. "For me." 

When he glances back, Cris is staring at him, pupils blown. 

Ricky watches him take a breath, pulling himself together the way he does when he steps up to the penalty spot. Ricky strokes his finger over Cris's thumb encouragingly, then lets go. 

The music switches, something darker that rumbles in Ricky's chest. Cris stalks onto the dance floor. Ricky loses sight of him for a moment in the swirl of bodies, but then he reappears next to the girl. He doesn't tap her on the shoulder, but neither does he sneak up on her -- instead, he insinuates himself into her field of vision, letting her set the pace, both of them mutually drawing closer until they catch against one another like magnets. She smiles at Cris through her bangs, beckoning. 

Cris looks up, locks eyes with Ricky.

Now what, his eyes seem to say. 

Ricky's moving almost before he realizes it. The crowd seems to part before him, the music fading out against the driving pulse of blood in his ears. Everything melts to insignificance.

The girl sees him coming first, over Cris's shoulder. Her mouth falls open in a gasp, but Ricky can't tell if it's from surprise or the way that she's rocking down against Cris's thigh. Up close, she's even lovelier than Ricky expected, with dark eyes and a small, mobile mouth that crooks into a knowing, quicksilver smile. She turns them around, and Ricky steps in to press against her back. 

Cris's eyes fly open. Ricky can see the crystalline beads of sweat on his eyelashes, the way his mouth trembles. His fingers dig into the satin fabric of the girl's dress.

Ricky hooks his chin over her shoulder, ducking his face below the curtain of her hair. He lets his lips just rest against the curve of her neck, barely tasting the heady mixture of perfume and sweat on her skin. They're posed, Ricky realizes, the exact same way he and Cris had been standing only moments before.

He closes his eyes and rolls his hips against the warm cradle of her backside, the way he'd wanted Cris to do earlier. She picks up the rhythm and translates it forwards to Cris, the three of them rocking together, clinging like castaways in a storm. Her hand reaches up and backwards, tugs sharply on Ricky's hair; Ricky gasps, a tiny sound he knows they both heard. Another hand -- Cris's hand; it must be -- slides into the right back pocket of his jeans, knuckles pressing against the seam there, tracing a promise neither of them is ready to keep just yet. 

Soon, though.

**Author's Note:**

> This is not in any way, shape, or form the fic I was expecting (or expected) to write for you. You deserve a million times more than this, but I expect I'll be writing stories for you for the foreseeable future, so consider this a very loving placeholder for many more stories to come.


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